


Fallout

by Aegir



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Speculation, fragment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-18
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-13 16:48:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3389066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aegir/pseuds/Aegir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fall, a helping hand, a reunion.  It’s far from being what Steve had hoped for.</p>
<p>Or.  A fragment from a possible plotline for Captain America: Civil War</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fallout

**Author's Note:**

> This is pure speculation, an idea for how the deck could be stacked against Steve in his next movie. I have no plans to expand on this at present.

“Don’t try and sit up.”

Of course that doesn’t stop Steve, but the flare of pain through his head is so bad he has to give up. Is his nose broken again? His ma’s going to be so mad...

“Can you swallow this? You need to stay hydrated?” The voice is comfortingly familiar. Half the water goes down Steve’s chin, but his shirt must be a mess anyway.

 

The next time he’s awake there’s a _thud, thud, thud_ that isn’t just in his head.

“Don’t sit up! Even your superskull needs some time to recover.”

Steve gives up on sitting, but he does manage to get his eyes half open.

“Bucky?”

A pause. “You can call me that if you want.”

Bucky is wearing grimy camouflage gear, with a cap pulled down and a messy beard. Steve knows he probably looks worse.

“Sam! Where…?”

“Headed north,” Bucky jerks his head slightly, “They were following, but with the wings he’ll probably get clear. Couldn’t tell whether he was trying to divert them from you or you were trying to divert them from him.”

“Both, I think,” Steve mumbles. He should have kept Sam out of this. He should…

“Will you stop trying to get up! You’re not going anywhere on that leg for a bit. I had to splint it.”

“But…” the thudding noise has been getting louder, and Steve has placed what it is. “Choppers.”

“Yeah. We’re out of sight here though, and this,” Bucky holds up something Steve can’t see properly except that it’s metallic “should block their heat sensors. Unless they’ve found a way to block the blockers.”

Bucky’s been a ghost a long time. It figures he’d be better at this than Steve.

“You’re helping me?” Steve tries. This would be easier if his head didn’t hurt so much.

“I follow the news, doesn’t mean I believe it.”

“It’s not wrong though.” Because he has to be honest, because he’s putting Bucky in danger yet again. “I didn’t know. I swear. I didn’t ask the right questions. I should have pushed more, but I’d never have taken the mission if I’d known the truth.”

“You don’t have to convince me of that,” Bucky says.

There’s more Steve wants to say, but his body is giving up on staying awake. He must have fallen a very long way.

 

When Steve wakes up again his headache is manageable, which means he’s aware for the first time of the pain in his leg. He can think a bit more clearly though.

“How long have we been here?” They are beneath a cliff overhang, not quite closed in enough to be a cave, with a screen of vegetation.

“Around twenty hours,” Bucky says.

“This is dangerous for you.” Technically Bucky is a wanted man but although he’d been caught on camera during the DC mess finding a hitman who had probably gone down with the helicarriers anyway had been much less of a priority to everyone except Steve than unravelling Pierce’s web of HYDRA moles. He’s done a fine job of lying low since, although Steve’s certain some of the unidentified HYDRA takedowns were him. This is different, though. “Stark’s one of the people looking for me.”

“Tony Stark? You really know how to pick enemies.” Clearly he knew enough about Stark to know there was no worse person to have on your tail if you were a fugitive.

“I don’t blame Tony.” Steve said.  “I was the one who pushed him to take responsibility for the Ultron mess. I told him, nobody is above being held to account, he should accept the consequences of what he’d done. And he did. That took guts. Of course he thinks I’m a hypocrite for not doing the same.”

Bucky’s eyes are on him, dark and shuttered. Steve ploughs on. “I would have faced up to it. Gone through due process. I was going to. But I hadn’t realised how much of HYDRA was left.”

Bucky nods. “Tentacles everywhere. You turn yourself in, a bullet in the back of the head is the best you can hope for. I get it.”

“Tony’s security is so tight, I can’t even talk to him without bringing an army down on me.” Steve can hear raw desperation creeping into his voice. “I’d been awake less than three months. SHIELD gave me a purpose, I believed what they told me.” He manages to block the pathetic, self-pitying ‘missions were all I had.’ “It’s no excuse.”

“I told you, you don’t have to convince me.” Bucky’s face is still and unreadable. Steve has nothing to give him, just as he’d had nothing in those back alleys lifetimes ago. He’d thought it could be different, would be different, but here he is in trouble of his own making, dragging Bucky in after him yet again.

“How did you find me?”

“I was tracking Rumlow. Guess he was tracking you, probably the one who tipped the hounds off. He got away when it all blew up.”

It doesn’t matter. What matters is doing whatever it takes to salvage this disaster. “Thanks,” Steve says. “I reckon I’d have been in worse trouble without you. We’ll part ways as soon as I can stand on this leg.”

“So you’ve been looking for me for months, and now you’ve found me you can’t wait to leave? You have a serious case of indecision.”

“I’m not going to lead HYDRA to you,” Steve insists.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair. “Look,” he says, after a pause. “We need to make sure your friend is OK. You’ll need backup, and I’m what you’ve got. Once we’ve found him, we’ll talk about it again.”

Clever of him. Of course Steve can’t turn down an offer of help for Sam, not when it’s his fault that Sam is running from the law. Steve has to fix all this somehow. Fighting HYDRA before, however bad things got he’d always been sure he could beat them. This time though, he feels even if he takes them all down, he’ll still have lost.

**Author's Note:**

> I was purposely vague about what Steve did while he was working for the SHIELD/HYDRA combo. But HYDRA got SHIELD to sign off on mass murder by drones. And if Steve was given convincing looking intel identifying a group of people as a threat to the world, why wouldn’t he believe it…


End file.
